Friday Fourplay: Cotton Candy Grapes, Corn on Swords, Making Water from Juice, and the Official Game of Thrones Food Blog

Flavorful World’s Friday Fourplay offers up a bite-sized tidbit of info on each of the four food- and drink-related things we found most interesting each week.

Photo credit: The Grapery

The Cotton Candy Grape

For anyone whose fruit has never tasted quite enough like spun sugar and air, these now exist. Being thankfully the product of canny plant hybridization rather than genetic modification, the cotton candy grape is a seedless green variety whose creation was no small feat, given that the process can take 6 to 15 years from start to finish). Being the more-than-occasional ethanol imbiber that I am, my first reaction to hearing of the cotton candy grape was to wonder what quality of wine might be made of it. Distributed by The Grapery, they’re currently sold for about $6 per pound. Now, if only someone will breed ones that taste like corn dogs and deep-fried Oreos, I think the flavors of the amusement park/county fair trifecta will be complete.

Enjoying a mouthful of sweet, steaming corn on the cob is its own reward, and doesn’t necessarily require any embellishments to raise the experience’s awesome factor. But because the wonderful design team at Kikkerland.com nonetheless thought it’d be fun to try anyway, fortunate eaters can score a set of these dishwasher-safe corn holders fashioned after ninja knives and buccaneer blades. $9.00 USD will get you two sets of each design. I can only imagine that breaking these out at your next cookout will get you a ride on the shoulders of your delighted guests. Probably. I don’t know. They’re your guests, not mine; so you tell me.

Koa Organic Water is visually indistinguishable from other bottled waters. One tasting it would likely never suspect that it is 100% made from the clarified juices of up to nine fruits and vegetables. But that’s exactly how this product is created, leading its manufacturer to declare it the world’s first “organic water.” Intended to deliver precious vitamins and minerals while eliminating the high sugar content of various fruits and veggies, it sounds likely to find appreciation among fitness-focused individuals. Koa Organic Beverages, like a growing number of food and beverage companies doing inventive things nowadays, has started a Kickstarter campaign inviting all comers to “join the evolution” (of water. Or maybe of juice. It isn’t really clear.)

Before Game of Thrones was a television juggernaut, it was a series of epic fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin. Since finding new life as a HBO series, its tapestry of interwoven stories and dynamic characters has won legions of new fans and left its indelible mark on real-world realms of food, entertaining, and beverages alike. As one example, enter The Inn at the Crossroads: The Official Game of Thrones Food Blog, a website created to share recipes enjoyed by the denizens of Martin’s world. Visitors will find a wealth of meals to prepare whenever they wish to eat like people do in Kings Landing, Dorne, and multiple cities Across the Narrow Sea. As both a fiction writer and a food lover myself, I do heartily and enthusiastically approve of its message, and am pleased to find judging from its Comments sections, that others appear to as well.

*Mention of a product, good, or service in a Friday Fourplay posting should not be interpreted as an endorsement either from Anthony Beal or Flavorful World food and drink blog. Vendors are not notified ahead of time that their products/services will be featured, thus Flavorful World will at the time of posting have had no related interactions with said vendors or any sample of their products/services by which to judge them. As such, we have no idea what these vendors are like to work with, or about the quality of their merchandise and are unqualified to vouch for them as reputable. Our Friday Fourplay lists are posted in the simple spirit of our having come across something that looks and sounds engaging, and thinking that perhaps our readers will think so too; no more, no less. With that in mind, patronize these establishments and vendors at your own risk.